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What is this business with what they call the Honey Register? We’ve been invited to the wedding of our good friends’ daughter. The bride and groom are asking guests to put money into their honeymoon wedding trip registry! I should add that my husband and the bride’s father are in business together. Nevertheless, buying the bride a piece of silver for her pattern or a set of towels or a toaster oven is one thing, but giving them cash to go to the Maldives is outrageous. Do we have to give in to this request, or can we send her a set of embroidered guest towels?

–Frugal, Crosby, Maine

People are talking about bridal registries.

“The times they are a changin,'” as Bob Dylan reminded us decades ago. No, you do not have to contribute to the Honey Register.

A register asking a guest to contribute money for a honeymoon, a downpayment on an apartment, or for a house restoration is merely a suggestion.

Nowadays, because many couples are living together longer before getting married and marrying later in life, they’ve already set up housekeeping and thus own the requisite toaster oven, towels, etc.

What the wedding couple are telling you is that they don’t want or need: a candy dish, ice bucket, measuring cups, or a blender. What they’re asking for is an experience.

A memory they can Snapshot and Instagram and talk about with their friends, and children, one day. If they fit the profile of the modern working couple, then they would probably benefit from a vacation.

There are no rules carved in stone dictating you have to give the wedding couple what they are asking for, because any kind of a bridal register is not de rigueur.

~Didi

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